Homemade canned cat food

As we ate the CSA chickens for the last few months I had been saving the hearts, livers and gizzards in the freezer. I was trying to build up the nerve to deep fry them and have them on Superbowl Sunday. I chickened out, pun intended.

Today we cooked our CSA turkey and it had VERY BIG guts! I decided it was time to do something with my large collection of internal organs.

My cat eats dry cat food 90% of the time, and that number would be even higher if he didn’t catch the occasional mouse in the yard. He’s already getting all the nutrition he needs, I just wanted to make him a tasty snack.

I defrosted all the livers, gizzards and hearts and boiled them until they were mostly done. I put all the “meat” through an antique cast iron meat grinder and then ran the last of it through with a couple pieces of wheat bread. I added about 35% rice to the mixture and then pressure canned it in cute little 4 ounce canning jars.

Yes indeed, they were pressure canned and have been stored at room temperature in the laundry room where the cat eats since the day after this blog post was made. He loves the food but I would slightly reduce the amount of rice next time, probably to 25%. I give him one of these 4 ounce jars about once a week, maybe slightly more often.